Member Avatar for jeturcotte

I have been having a strange problem with a DELL 8400 I bought around this time last year; I remember now that the very first time I turned it on, it did this, but then for a long time it was ok... anyways, in the last few months, if I leave the machine turned off overnight and then boot in the morning, the (a) fan (since I suppose it could be one on the graphics card, on one the processor or the big'un in the back) (can you tell yet the extent to which I don't generally associate myself with hardware or its jargon :cheesy: ) winds up so loud its like listening to the jet engine just as you are at the bottom of the runway and whipping up to take off... it even takes on a hit pitch tone... meanwhile, the computer DOES NOT BOOT... the green lights on the DVD/CD drives will blink for a bit, then stop... but nothing else happens.

But if i hold in the power button (software power button after all) it'll turn off again, I turn it on and it boots quiet and normal... This has been annoying and concerning, but I've been able to plaster myself to my 12 hour a day work and that's what has counted so far...

Well, this time I have just returned from a brainstorming trip to D.C. and it took me a good 7 or 8 jet engines to finally get her to boot up...

Granted, I haven't torn the case off to persue this particular issue, but even if i did, I don't have the background to be able to be able to identify the fan that is causing the sound... in the meantime, I am hoping someone here has come across this before or may just intuitively understand the processes within to have suggestions or ideas... granted, I may have to call dell someday, but seeing as how steeply in decline their customer support has been, I'd like to begin with this alternative.

Thanks in advance, JET

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Member Avatar for dcc

If this computer is still under waranty, let Dell take care of it. One thing you could do is to check the event viewer and see what kind of errors are occuring, the event viewer will show the date and time of events, and an error code for the events.

With the combination of the fan and computer not booting, it could be a heat issue with the proccessor and it's fan, it could be that the CPU fan is not seated properly.

Member Avatar for alc6379

Too true. You might have a bad heatsink or something.

Or, you could be looking at having to upgrade your BIOS revision. All the same, Dell tech support can help you out with that if you're still within warranty.

Member Avatar for ryansw2003

you could try opening you computer and taking out the graphics card and then putting it back in and then start the computer back up.
i now it sound weird but i had the simalar problem and it worked:D:D:D but my problem was that it had like six beeps but its worth
a try.

Member Avatar for caperjack

i can't imaging a little fan on a video card sounding like a jet engine, i have a 10,000 rpm scsi harddrive drive that boots like one though ,i thing you may have a bad cpu fan though

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